Annie Christie's That Long Hot SummerEpisode One

Genre:DramaSwearwords: None.Description:Daniel has an unwelcome houseguest.

‘You’ve been living here three years, Dan, and you’ve never even had a house-warming party. Or was I not invited?’ Mike stirred what looked like a lethal cocktail, took off his safety goggles, offered Daniel a mock glass clinking ‘cheers’ and downed the lot. It was a lurid green liquid that reminded Daniel of some terrible kids fruit cocktail from his childhood. Boys at his primary school had forced him to drink it once and he never forgot the taste and the shame of the sickly sweet experience.

‘What…?’ Daniel said, because he felt he had to say something.

No response. Mike was obviously savouring the experience.

‘What the hell was that?’ Daniel asked, thankful to get a whole sentence out this time.

Mike puffed out his cheeks and did that really annoying flobby-shake thing people do with them. The thing you can’t put any kind of name to in descriptive prose.

‘Oh, lighten up,’ Mike said. ‘It’s in the job description. Research chemist. I’m researching. And that…’ he pointed at the empty beaker, ‘was definitely chemistry at its finest. Now don’t get off the point. When’s the house-warming party. I can make up a batch of this stuff any time you like and bring it round.’

For just a moment Daniel wondered whether Mike even knew where he lived. He kind of hoped not. Mike put the loose in cannon and Daniel was risk-averse in every respect. A belief system reflected by the fact that in his three years working at the University, he’d made no friends – indeed, simply because they shared a research lab, Mike might claim to be Daniel’s closest friend in Salford. Now that was a scary thought.

Perhaps, thought Daniel, I should do something to make friends. If only to keep Mike at bay.

But the thought scared him, so he filed it away and got back to the job in hand.

An hour later, when the effects of whatever Mike had mixed up for himself had started to wear off, he was back on the trail.

‘So. A house-warming party. Come on. You’ve got to.’

‘Why?’ Daniel asked. ‘I’ve been there three years, like you said, and…’

‘And what?’

‘It’s no longer appropriate.’

Mike laughed. ‘Appropriate. What kind of a word is that for a twenty something guy to use?’

‘I’ll have a party when I’ve finished doing the place up.’ Daniel was desperate, feeling backed into a corner he hadn’t even painted yet.

‘You mean you’ve been there three years and you’re…’

‘Can’t decide on the décor – kind of got used to the plaster walls…’

‘I have to see this place,’ Mike said.

That was what Daniel was afraid of. His reticence came across clearly. He may even have flinched.

‘What’s the problem, bro? Got bodies in the cellar?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Oh, I know… you’ve got some foreign bird shacked up there as a love slave. No, maybe a whole harem of them.’

‘I just…’ Daniel had run out of excuses.

‘Well, if you want, come back after work today,’ he said.

‘Great,’ Mike replied. ‘And hey, I’ll buy the pizza.’

~~~

On the way home they stopped off at the pizza shop. It was shut. More than shut. Boarded up. Seriously boarded up.

‘What part of town has a pizza shop that’s not open in the evenings?’ Mike asked, clearly unable to get to grips with the full dullness of Daniel’s existence.

‘Uh, I think it was burned down or something,’ Daniel replied. ‘I don’t eat pizza that much.’

‘Don’t eat pizza? There’s more wrong with you than I thought,’ Mike replied. ‘So where do we shop around here?’

Daniel was flustered. He didn’t really think about shopping. It was on a need to use basis. He went into the nearest place, got what he could and left again as quickly as possible. With as little interaction as possible.

‘What about here?’ he said. It was a spur of the moment reaction. He didn’t think it through. It just so happened they were passing the local retail park. It was the short cut to Daniel’s house. He’d been there recently looking for light fittings. He knew, that if pushed, he’d be able to go into the DIY store again. It was part of a big chain and they did all sorts – food, garden stuff, homewares. Mike was already half way through the doors.

As they fanned out, Mike looking for the chiller cabinet – and whether there was a booze aisle – Daniel saw her. To be strictly honest he saw her again. He’d seen her before and not known what to say. He’d been trying too hard to control his pulse rate, to stop a full blown panic attack from happening and, in his attempt not to panic, he’d picked up the first thing he’d seen and taken it to the checkout where she was serving.

Only when he stood at the checkout did he notice what it was he was holding. It was a pot plant. What did he need a pot plant for? To hide behind?

‘Good choice,’ she said. She smiled as she rang it through. He looked at her name badge. He read it.

‘Thanks, Shelley,’ he said.

‘Sorry?’ she replied, confused.

‘Your name badge, Shelley,’ he said. Damn it. Once more in his attempt to be appropriate he’d made an idiot of himself.

‘My name’s Daniel,’ he said. It was only politeness.

Now she was going to think he was chatting her up. As if. She was exactly the sort of girl he wished he could chat up. But chatting up wasn’t in his psyche. Isolation was the name of the game. Loser. Written all over his DNA.

‘Hi, Daniel,’ she smiled. ‘Do you know how to look after that?’

‘Uh, what?’ he burbled. He had no idea what was coming next. There were no rules for this kind of conversation. So he was lost.

‘It does require a lot of light – and heat,’ she said. ‘Like a conservatory or something. Do you have a conservatory?’

He thought. Rather too long. He pictured his small two up two down terraced house without a garden, just a small concrete back yard where you could hang up some clothes but not if you expected them to dry. He needed a tumble drier. But they used up so much electricity. Which he knew was bad for the planet. And he found the noise quite unbearable.

‘Conservatory, no,’ he said.

‘Oh, okay,’ she said. ‘Well, how about this?’

She handed him a piece of paper. It was a flyer. Some sort of competition.

‘You have to fill in the answer,’ she said, ‘and the first prize is a trip for two to Mauritius. The second prize is a ride on mower, and the third prize is a greenhouse.’

‘Uh…’ he said.

‘You should spend over £50 to be eligible for the competition,’ she added.

He handed her the flyer back.

‘No,’ she smiled, ‘have this one on me.’

She handed him a pen. He started to read the question…

She leaned in towards him. There was beginning to be a queue forming behind and she wanted to be discreet.

‘The answer is…’ and she whispered it to him.

‘Really?’ he asked.

‘Promise,’ she said. And smiled again.

Every time she smiled it went straight into his heart. The heart that was pumping overtime trying to stay calm. There was just something about her. She was different. It wasn’t just the blue streaks in her hair. It was…

~~~

‘Come on, Dan,’ Mike shouted, ‘I’ve got the goodies.’

Daniel came back to the present, which was Mike standing in a queue and the girl… the girl of his dreams… fortunately was on another checkout. In a split second he realised that he didn’t want Mike to meet this girl. Mike would just… well he didn’t know what Mike would do, but he knew it wouldn’t be good. He had to get out of the store without the girl noticing him or Mike noticing the girl or… and before he set in to a full scale panic attack.

Somehow they managed it. Though Daniel couldn’t really remember how they made it back to his house. It was all a bit of a blur. He was putting the key in the door before he realised what a truly bad move it was for Mike to know where he lived.

They put the pizza and beer down in the sparse kitchen. On the worktop above the space where a tumble drier or a dish-washer might have lived if Daniel had got round to buying them. But what would he need with a dish-washer. There was only him living in the house. And as already established, a tumble drier was bad for the environment. After all, these days, drying clothes wasn’t that much of a problem. Not with the thermostat set up to 27.

Normally it didn’t bother Daniel, the heat. He was used to it by now. He had a ritual when he came in. He took off his suit jacket, his tie and his shirt and stripped his trousers off. He spent the evenings in his boxers and somehow it just seemed right.

But with Mike here, he couldn’t do that, could he, and even he had to admit the place was rather warm.

Pizza unpacked and beer opened they went back into the hall on the way to the living room. Past the thermostat. Mike noticed it.

‘It’s bloody 27 degrees mate,’ he said. ‘Is it broken?’

‘No,’ said Daniel.

And then Mike opened the door into the sitting room and got the full force of the tropical heat. And understood why the house was so hot.

‘Bloody Nora,’ he said. ‘What the…?’

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About the Author

​Annie Christie is a pretty ordinary person, except that she was born Annie Christie and then married a man called Christie and so is still called Christie despite having taken on her husband’s name. She sometimes wonders if she should have called herself Christie-Christie: but who would believe that?

Born near Drum of Wartle in Aberdeenshire, Annie moved as swiftly as possible to a place with a less bizarre name – Edinburgh – but the bizarreness chased her and she now lives with her husband Rab in rural Galloway, with a Kirkcudbrightshire postcode. (That's Cur coo bree shire to the uninitiated.) She is an active member of the Infinite Jigsaw Project.

That Long Hot Summer is Annie's third McSerial written for McStorytellers.